0055: The Other Green Room (3)
TITLE: The Other Green Room
AUTHOR: Mai / junmai
GENRE: Humor (attempted) / Crack (?) / Gen
RATING: PG-13
PAIRING: None
LENGTH: Part 3 of 5 - 2,755 Words
DISCLAIMER: Fiction, fiction. I do not own Arashi. The Trainee is mine, I think. Concept (and the Secretary) is based from The Fanfic Lounge by CNell.
AUTHOR’S NOTES: I wanted to end it here, but by the looks of it, there's still another one coming.
***
“Secretary!” the Trainee cried out, looking like he was about to weep from intense relief.
The Secretary, a woman in her thirties and wearing a modest, corporate look that screamed efficiency, smiled benignly at her junior co-worker before pushing the door closed with her whole body weight thrown in. Seeing the struggle, the Trainee realized that there was something just beyond the door needing to be kept outside and rushed to help her in locking the room. Almost instantly, ominous poundings on the door followed, coupled with trilling (and annoying) voices.
Ninomiya Kazunari, who was nursing a pulled hip muscle from his last chapter, had quickly grasped the situation and thus asked, “Those are Sues, right?”
Slightly out of breath, the Secretary could only nod and sigh in reply before deftly straightening a dislodged pin on her hair because of the little exercise she just got. And then it took a half-second for her to completely ignore the trilling (and annoying) voices just outside the room and be back to her usual perky self.
“Why, it’s everyone from Arashi! How nice to see you again!” she greeted enthusiastically, greeting them with a courteous bow which the men (in varying levels of energy) hastened to return, except for the plank over the armchair that was Nino. Chuckling at his ‘sorry-I’m-currently-paralyzed’ expression, the woman gave Nino a motherly pat on the head before facing the Trainee.
“Well, I never expected anything more than that plagiarism issue this morning, but look at how the day has progressed!” she said to him in amazement. “I never would have really thought that she could plan and execute an elaborate prank on the Realm! Then again, she was pretty well-written, and if not for the observable Mary Sue indicators, she would have been an Original Character with her own fan base.”
“It’s somewhat a pity, now that I think of it,” the Trainee replied somewhat stiffly. When he couldn’t take it anymore, he all of a sudden sobbed out his morning frustrations.
“Oh, you have had quite a rough morning, I see,” his senior co-worker said with concern.
“I…,” he gulped, and instead of saying what was on his mind, he merely put a stopper for rest of his tears and composed himself back to professionalism.
“Would you like to stay in the staff room to have a proper man-cry?” the Secretary suggested, patting his shoulder.
That did it. The Trainee straightened up and swallowed audibly for the last time before saying, “I’m fine, thank you,” though his ears looked a little red. The woman gave him an impish grin, indicating that she was joking.
Everyone else chuckled along, including the blushing Trainee, until Sakurai Sho, who was again dressed in the couch cover when the Secretary entered the room, realized something.
“Wait, wait, wait…it was just a prank?” he asked.
“Oh, yes,” the Secretary answered cheerfully, “and that’s why I came here; to explain the situation beyond that door.” The ominous pounding and trilling voices from earlier had already dissipated.
“Ah, that’s lovely!” she said, much relieved. “They must have been already shooed away by the maintenance people. But I don’t think it’s safe to go outside just yet; we have to wait for the official announcement from the higher-ups. So for the meantime we can just proceed with the meeting.”
With the formal introductions done (Aiba thanked the Trainee for returning him to normal), the coffee table refilled with drinks and snacks (there was more cake and tea than possible), the seating rearranged (so that Nino could hog the couch while the rest took bean bags and cushions), and departmental memos handed out to everyone; the monthly fanfic evaluation meeting proceeded as planned. The Secretary was seated on one of the armchairs while the Trainee hovered here and there, assisting his senior co-worker as much as possible.
“Everyone from Arashi, welcome to the Other Green Room!” the Secretary grandly announced as she stood up for effect, and all of the Arashi members couldn’t help but give a round of polite applause while the Trainee popped a couple of confetti, giving the meeting an out-of-place, children’s party-like atmosphere.
“For this morning, you have been called here for our monthly Arashi fanfic evaluation meeting,” she declared, a little less formally. “Unfortunately, and I sincerely apologize for such an occurrence, our AU Control Room was hacked a little past eight-thirty by one of our Genius-Hacker Mary Sues and caused several glitches in the transport of idols. First, Matsumoto-san,” she then addressed the youngest of the idol group.
Matsumoto Jun, who was currently revelling in his regained memories of the Realm, sat up straighter from his cushion.
“I understand that you already remember everything you know about the Realm?” the Secretary inquired gently.
“Yes, I don’t have any other trouble retrieving facts about this place anymore,” Jun answered, his tone a little lighter, less withdrawn from the lack of confidence due to memory loss.
Not quite feeling relieved yet, the Secretary fought off a little frown. “But you don’t really…uh…remember anything…erm, explicit, from your chapters in this Realm, do you?”
“Explicit?” Jun repeated, confused.
“Well, for example, yesterday you had an R-rating chapter with Ninomiya-san…,” the woman delicately continued, “do you, by any chance, remember anything…specifically, uh, back-breaking?”
“Wai-what…you mean…?” Jun stammered, growing redder at what he thinks the Secretary was asking. He took a deep breath and bravely continued, “If by that, you mean, flat-out porn with Nino…,”
Everyone fell silent, waiting with bated breath.
“…no, I don’t remember the details.”
A collective sigh of relief ran across the room, so pronounced was it that Jun wanted to bite off the next thing he was about to say. But he went on, saying oh-most-hesitantly, “I did experience a little…,” and he was then rescued by Nino, who, also blushing a little, chimed in, “…stiffness at the back and legs the next morning, yes.” Jun shot Nino a grateful look before sinking in his seat.
“Oh, yes…of course,” the Secretary, and nearly everyone cleared their throats at the awkwardness of the topic. As she possesses the uncanny ability to recover quickly, the Secretary ploughed on, at least to explain the reason why she was asking these things.
“I’m definitely happy to hear that, believe me,” she clarified, “because I was merely making sure that none of you actually remember things that should’ve been properly filtered to avoid mental scarring and general awkwardness amongst yourselves. We’ve had such case before, quite long ago, and it didn’t really end well. Not to mention Johnny-san would have our heads cut off in a heartbeat if any of his idols experience any lasting damage from the Realm, you see.”
“And we were wondering how you could possibly go around the smut parts in your latest fic. I guess no need for it if you’re supposed to forget the details,” Sho said aside to Ohno Satoshi, who nodded with obvious relief, while Aiba Masaki let out his breathy giggle when he overheard the comment.
“Well then,” the Secretary continued, “no one else has trouble with their memories? None? Good! Moving on, with regards to the Genius-Hacker Sue that was responsible for your untimely transport between stories and real-life, I would like to congratulate Ohno Satoshi-san for his impressive and insightful suggestion as to what we could do for bored characters and avoid a repeat of this morning’s incident,” and she clapped her hands, joined by the Trainee, Jun and Sho, who had been present by then.
Ohno, embarrassed by the attention, replied faintly, “I didn’t think it was that impressive…”
“Nonsense!” was the answer, “Your suggestion is so spot-on it has already been followed by the higher-ups who have contacts on the outside…just a while ago, they’ve asked some friends to collaborate on a fanfic from where the Genius-Hacker Sue originated, and they’re also thinking of getting the other glittery Mary Sues and Gary Stus who can contribute in the plot. It’s going to be epic-long, with several sequels, and it will definitely keep these characters busy for the next 2-3 years. Who knows, it might become the successor to Twilight, if not better.”
“As expected of Riida!” Aiba exclaimed, and a millisecond later Nino exploded into, “Are you SERIOUS? The world doesn’t need another Twilight, thankyouverymuch.”
“My goodness, no. We will, of course, make sure that the story remains a Fanfic this time,” the Secretary said with grave emphasis.
The Trainee couldn’t help but add regretfully, “We never really imagined the last one would get published and rise to insane popularity despite the colossally obvious Mary Sue heroine and lack of plot…I mean, if you were to classify it, it’s obviously under PWP*, right?”
“And yet it got published…” Nino trailed off, the stress getting to his hip.
“That’s just…scary,” Jun muttered.
“On a somewhat positive side,” Sho interjected, “we never really ‘sparkled’ outside of our concert outfits, right?”
“That…or it could’ve been filtered from our consciousness to avoid mental scarring,” Ohno speculated, quoting heavily from the Secretary’s earlier words. “We did have parodies, I think.”
“And loads of vampire fics, if I may mention,” the Trainee said.
“Well, anything is better than sparkly skin,” Jun firmly acknowledged.
“Like Oh-chan’s tan, for example?” Aiba teased, and sniggered as their youngest laughingly reached over to give him a good ol’ rap on the forehead.
“Before we move on to the next point, does anybody have questions or pressing concerns that we might address for this meeting?” the Secretary asked as the laughter died down, looking round everyone.
Sho raised a hand. “Do I have to return to the chapter where I was pulled from?” He looked both hopeful and hesitant, as if he already knew the answer and was merely trying his luck.
The Secretary smiled kindly. “I’m sorry, Sakurai-san, but yes, you have to,” was her almost dismissive answer. “Other questions?”
Sho raised his other hand. “Do I really have to?” he asked, somewhat desperately, and adding a wildly conjured excuse, “What if I pull a muscle like Nino?”
This time, the Trainee piped up with an unhelpful, “Chances of such an incident is actually rather slim unless otherwise specified by the writer in a scene. And Ninomiya-san only pulled a muscle because he came from the climactic chapter of a harem fic. There was…erm, much physical activity within that it was natural to run short on flexibility.”
The idols wore similar expressions of shock, while Nino, who was looking smug, delicately coughed something which sounded like ‘powerhouse’.
“Well, any other questions? None?” One last sweep across the room for any raised hand was done before the Secretary declared, “Great! Let us then move on to the main topic for today.”
“So far, the fanfiction production rate that features Arashi is still very lively; you’re always kept busy by new chapters, one-shots and drabbles on a daily basis. Authors still love the way that whatever plot they come up with, all five of you can make an appearance, regardless of pairing, genre and rating. I must say, the dynamics of your group is so inspiring that even the least liked member gets as much as a cameo,” the Secretary said after a quick study of Arashi statistics on the Trainee’s clipboard, promptly handed over to the new person in charge.
“Not much can be said about the quality though, but of course, we all know it’s been a problem since the Internet was made available for everyone. You still do have a load of loyal writers who care about grammar, spelling and plot, but as they do take time churning out lovely chapters, the amount of low quality fiction is still greater than the good reads. Nonetheless, the quality of your R-fics ranges from ‘Needs a Beta’ to ‘Exhilarating’, which is saying a lot for written porn,” she ended on a rather thrilled note.
The young men looked at one another, wondering if anyone had anything for a comment.
“Um, we don’t really know what to say to that?” Jun offered politely, “Well, at least with the R-fics, we don’t really remember. But um, we’re…glad?” and he looked at his band mates, who simultaneously nodded to keep him going. “Yeah, glad because we’re…actually still able to do a lot of…chapters together. Yeah, that would be the case.”
Various versions of “That’s right,” were heard, and heads bobbing up and down in unison. And there was an awkward pause.
“Er, right!” the Secretary managed. “So! Um…the next on the list would be…pairings with other actors and actresses,” she paused, scanning the next page on the clipboard. “I suppose it’s just fair to conclude that Matsumoto-san’s latest romance drama wasn’t really enough to help step up his Het fics with actresses…”
“…which is of course not T-san’s fault, is it?” Nino deftly managed to throw in, always a little more receptive when it comes to his ideal woman. And somehow, at the mere mention of Takeuchi Yuko, he was now propped up on the couch, cross-legged, and no one had noticed yet how the idol seemed to have cured his hip in an instant.
“Oh, no, of course not!” the Secretary exclaimed, “I’m only saying that Natsu no Koi wa Nijiiro ni Kagayaku simply couldn’t erase the fact that Matsumoto-san really looks incredibly compatible with Inoue Mao-san. And if he were to be paired with an older woman, the image of someone like Koyuki-san in Kimi wa Petto is much too compelling to let go of. Takeuchi-san’s character in NatsuNiji was…a little dampened by the fact that Kitamura-san already has a kid and-,”
“-in short, not R-fic-worthy?” Aiba finished for her. “Well, that’s too bad; I actually thought they could work as a new pair.”
“Not with Nino fanboying over her all the time, no,” Sho said logically. One glance over at Nino on the couch and he went, “Hey, wait a minute!”
There was a little scramble for spots on the couch, and Nino was dethroned on the cushions next to Ohno while Jun, Aiba and Sho each won a place. The Ohmiya SK duo thus proceeded with a little cuddling time, although any molestation on Nino’s part was not executed due to the fact that he was fresh from being molested by harem girls himself…and surprisingly desired a little break.
“Which leads us to the conclusion that the sure-fire way to encourage Het fics for Matsumoto-san without subjecting him to original characters that are most likely to be Mary Sue candidates is to have him work with Inoue-san again,” the Trainee concluded. “On another related note, I believe it’s easier for all of you to be in a Het fic if you’re paired up with actresses you’ve worked with before in real life, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, that’s like working on a drama…” Sho agreed, “I think it’s as comfortable as when we’re paired with one another, isn’t it?” he asked his band members, who seem to be of the same opinion.
“Any possibilities of a JunxMao collaboration in the near future?” the Secretary again turned to Jun, who could only shrug helplessly.
“Couldn’t they watch HanaDan all over again?” he half-suggested.
“Not everyone is as addicted as Becky, you know,” Aiba said aside to him. Both of them smothered a chuckle at the memory of the actress’ fan reactions for HanaDan.
“Speaking of Becky-san, she and Aiba-san still make a complimentary pair,” the Trainee added, and checking several other pages, “Then for Sakurai-san, we have Horikita Maki-san…eh, generally smut though…”
“…just smut?” Sho complained.
“…and also Fukada Kyoko-san, I almost forgot,” the Trainee went on, “And as for Ninomiya-san…”
“Ah, Yuriko-chan…” Ohno immediately produced.
“Yoshitaka Yuriko-san is quite a fan favourite, yes,” the Secretary said very fondly. “It’s not a surprising thing to see NinoxYuriko fics ranging from fluffy to smutty ever since GANTZ, so it’ll be a while before the hype dies down. Is it possible that you two are in a relationship?” she added hopefully.
“You know better than to ask, silly,” Nino answered, laughing at her question.
“Aha! Could it be that you’re a fan of Nino and Yuriko-chan?” Aiba asked the Secretary curiously.
She laughed, a little embarrassed. “You could say that, I suppose.”
“What about Riida then? Who’s he usually paired with?” Aiba asked the room in general.
Everyone, including Ohno himself, looked at one another…and shrugged.
“Well…,” Aiba said slowly, “you know you can always be in a love-triangle with me and Becky, Riida.”
Cue the cricket sound.
***
* [ Plot? What Plot?, though the lack of sexual scenes make it more Abstinence Porn than anything >.< ]
( Return to Part 2 | Continue to Part 4 )
AUTHOR: Mai / junmai
GENRE: Humor (attempted) / Crack (?) / Gen
RATING: PG-13
PAIRING: None
LENGTH: Part 3 of 5 - 2,755 Words
DISCLAIMER: Fiction, fiction. I do not own Arashi. The Trainee is mine, I think. Concept (and the Secretary) is based from The Fanfic Lounge by CNell.
AUTHOR’S NOTES: I wanted to end it here, but by the looks of it, there's still another one coming.
***
“Secretary!” the Trainee cried out, looking like he was about to weep from intense relief.
The Secretary, a woman in her thirties and wearing a modest, corporate look that screamed efficiency, smiled benignly at her junior co-worker before pushing the door closed with her whole body weight thrown in. Seeing the struggle, the Trainee realized that there was something just beyond the door needing to be kept outside and rushed to help her in locking the room. Almost instantly, ominous poundings on the door followed, coupled with trilling (and annoying) voices.
Ninomiya Kazunari, who was nursing a pulled hip muscle from his last chapter, had quickly grasped the situation and thus asked, “Those are Sues, right?”
Slightly out of breath, the Secretary could only nod and sigh in reply before deftly straightening a dislodged pin on her hair because of the little exercise she just got. And then it took a half-second for her to completely ignore the trilling (and annoying) voices just outside the room and be back to her usual perky self.
“Why, it’s everyone from Arashi! How nice to see you again!” she greeted enthusiastically, greeting them with a courteous bow which the men (in varying levels of energy) hastened to return, except for the plank over the armchair that was Nino. Chuckling at his ‘sorry-I’m-currently-paralyzed’ expression, the woman gave Nino a motherly pat on the head before facing the Trainee.
“Well, I never expected anything more than that plagiarism issue this morning, but look at how the day has progressed!” she said to him in amazement. “I never would have really thought that she could plan and execute an elaborate prank on the Realm! Then again, she was pretty well-written, and if not for the observable Mary Sue indicators, she would have been an Original Character with her own fan base.”
“It’s somewhat a pity, now that I think of it,” the Trainee replied somewhat stiffly. When he couldn’t take it anymore, he all of a sudden sobbed out his morning frustrations.
“Oh, you have had quite a rough morning, I see,” his senior co-worker said with concern.
“I…,” he gulped, and instead of saying what was on his mind, he merely put a stopper for rest of his tears and composed himself back to professionalism.
“Would you like to stay in the staff room to have a proper man-cry?” the Secretary suggested, patting his shoulder.
That did it. The Trainee straightened up and swallowed audibly for the last time before saying, “I’m fine, thank you,” though his ears looked a little red. The woman gave him an impish grin, indicating that she was joking.
Everyone else chuckled along, including the blushing Trainee, until Sakurai Sho, who was again dressed in the couch cover when the Secretary entered the room, realized something.
“Wait, wait, wait…it was just a prank?” he asked.
“Oh, yes,” the Secretary answered cheerfully, “and that’s why I came here; to explain the situation beyond that door.” The ominous pounding and trilling voices from earlier had already dissipated.
“Ah, that’s lovely!” she said, much relieved. “They must have been already shooed away by the maintenance people. But I don’t think it’s safe to go outside just yet; we have to wait for the official announcement from the higher-ups. So for the meantime we can just proceed with the meeting.”
With the formal introductions done (Aiba thanked the Trainee for returning him to normal), the coffee table refilled with drinks and snacks (there was more cake and tea than possible), the seating rearranged (so that Nino could hog the couch while the rest took bean bags and cushions), and departmental memos handed out to everyone; the monthly fanfic evaluation meeting proceeded as planned. The Secretary was seated on one of the armchairs while the Trainee hovered here and there, assisting his senior co-worker as much as possible.
“Everyone from Arashi, welcome to the Other Green Room!” the Secretary grandly announced as she stood up for effect, and all of the Arashi members couldn’t help but give a round of polite applause while the Trainee popped a couple of confetti, giving the meeting an out-of-place, children’s party-like atmosphere.
“For this morning, you have been called here for our monthly Arashi fanfic evaluation meeting,” she declared, a little less formally. “Unfortunately, and I sincerely apologize for such an occurrence, our AU Control Room was hacked a little past eight-thirty by one of our Genius-Hacker Mary Sues and caused several glitches in the transport of idols. First, Matsumoto-san,” she then addressed the youngest of the idol group.
Matsumoto Jun, who was currently revelling in his regained memories of the Realm, sat up straighter from his cushion.
“I understand that you already remember everything you know about the Realm?” the Secretary inquired gently.
“Yes, I don’t have any other trouble retrieving facts about this place anymore,” Jun answered, his tone a little lighter, less withdrawn from the lack of confidence due to memory loss.
Not quite feeling relieved yet, the Secretary fought off a little frown. “But you don’t really…uh…remember anything…erm, explicit, from your chapters in this Realm, do you?”
“Explicit?” Jun repeated, confused.
“Well, for example, yesterday you had an R-rating chapter with Ninomiya-san…,” the woman delicately continued, “do you, by any chance, remember anything…specifically, uh, back-breaking?”
“Wai-what…you mean…?” Jun stammered, growing redder at what he thinks the Secretary was asking. He took a deep breath and bravely continued, “If by that, you mean, flat-out porn with Nino…,”
Everyone fell silent, waiting with bated breath.
“…no, I don’t remember the details.”
A collective sigh of relief ran across the room, so pronounced was it that Jun wanted to bite off the next thing he was about to say. But he went on, saying oh-most-hesitantly, “I did experience a little…,” and he was then rescued by Nino, who, also blushing a little, chimed in, “…stiffness at the back and legs the next morning, yes.” Jun shot Nino a grateful look before sinking in his seat.
“Oh, yes…of course,” the Secretary, and nearly everyone cleared their throats at the awkwardness of the topic. As she possesses the uncanny ability to recover quickly, the Secretary ploughed on, at least to explain the reason why she was asking these things.
“I’m definitely happy to hear that, believe me,” she clarified, “because I was merely making sure that none of you actually remember things that should’ve been properly filtered to avoid mental scarring and general awkwardness amongst yourselves. We’ve had such case before, quite long ago, and it didn’t really end well. Not to mention Johnny-san would have our heads cut off in a heartbeat if any of his idols experience any lasting damage from the Realm, you see.”
“And we were wondering how you could possibly go around the smut parts in your latest fic. I guess no need for it if you’re supposed to forget the details,” Sho said aside to Ohno Satoshi, who nodded with obvious relief, while Aiba Masaki let out his breathy giggle when he overheard the comment.
“Well then,” the Secretary continued, “no one else has trouble with their memories? None? Good! Moving on, with regards to the Genius-Hacker Sue that was responsible for your untimely transport between stories and real-life, I would like to congratulate Ohno Satoshi-san for his impressive and insightful suggestion as to what we could do for bored characters and avoid a repeat of this morning’s incident,” and she clapped her hands, joined by the Trainee, Jun and Sho, who had been present by then.
Ohno, embarrassed by the attention, replied faintly, “I didn’t think it was that impressive…”
“Nonsense!” was the answer, “Your suggestion is so spot-on it has already been followed by the higher-ups who have contacts on the outside…just a while ago, they’ve asked some friends to collaborate on a fanfic from where the Genius-Hacker Sue originated, and they’re also thinking of getting the other glittery Mary Sues and Gary Stus who can contribute in the plot. It’s going to be epic-long, with several sequels, and it will definitely keep these characters busy for the next 2-3 years. Who knows, it might become the successor to Twilight, if not better.”
“As expected of Riida!” Aiba exclaimed, and a millisecond later Nino exploded into, “Are you SERIOUS? The world doesn’t need another Twilight, thankyouverymuch.”
“My goodness, no. We will, of course, make sure that the story remains a Fanfic this time,” the Secretary said with grave emphasis.
The Trainee couldn’t help but add regretfully, “We never really imagined the last one would get published and rise to insane popularity despite the colossally obvious Mary Sue heroine and lack of plot…I mean, if you were to classify it, it’s obviously under PWP*, right?”
“And yet it got published…” Nino trailed off, the stress getting to his hip.
“That’s just…scary,” Jun muttered.
“On a somewhat positive side,” Sho interjected, “we never really ‘sparkled’ outside of our concert outfits, right?”
“That…or it could’ve been filtered from our consciousness to avoid mental scarring,” Ohno speculated, quoting heavily from the Secretary’s earlier words. “We did have parodies, I think.”
“And loads of vampire fics, if I may mention,” the Trainee said.
“Well, anything is better than sparkly skin,” Jun firmly acknowledged.
“Like Oh-chan’s tan, for example?” Aiba teased, and sniggered as their youngest laughingly reached over to give him a good ol’ rap on the forehead.
“Before we move on to the next point, does anybody have questions or pressing concerns that we might address for this meeting?” the Secretary asked as the laughter died down, looking round everyone.
Sho raised a hand. “Do I have to return to the chapter where I was pulled from?” He looked both hopeful and hesitant, as if he already knew the answer and was merely trying his luck.
The Secretary smiled kindly. “I’m sorry, Sakurai-san, but yes, you have to,” was her almost dismissive answer. “Other questions?”
Sho raised his other hand. “Do I really have to?” he asked, somewhat desperately, and adding a wildly conjured excuse, “What if I pull a muscle like Nino?”
This time, the Trainee piped up with an unhelpful, “Chances of such an incident is actually rather slim unless otherwise specified by the writer in a scene. And Ninomiya-san only pulled a muscle because he came from the climactic chapter of a harem fic. There was…erm, much physical activity within that it was natural to run short on flexibility.”
The idols wore similar expressions of shock, while Nino, who was looking smug, delicately coughed something which sounded like ‘powerhouse’.
“Well, any other questions? None?” One last sweep across the room for any raised hand was done before the Secretary declared, “Great! Let us then move on to the main topic for today.”
“So far, the fanfiction production rate that features Arashi is still very lively; you’re always kept busy by new chapters, one-shots and drabbles on a daily basis. Authors still love the way that whatever plot they come up with, all five of you can make an appearance, regardless of pairing, genre and rating. I must say, the dynamics of your group is so inspiring that even the least liked member gets as much as a cameo,” the Secretary said after a quick study of Arashi statistics on the Trainee’s clipboard, promptly handed over to the new person in charge.
“Not much can be said about the quality though, but of course, we all know it’s been a problem since the Internet was made available for everyone. You still do have a load of loyal writers who care about grammar, spelling and plot, but as they do take time churning out lovely chapters, the amount of low quality fiction is still greater than the good reads. Nonetheless, the quality of your R-fics ranges from ‘Needs a Beta’ to ‘Exhilarating’, which is saying a lot for written porn,” she ended on a rather thrilled note.
The young men looked at one another, wondering if anyone had anything for a comment.
“Um, we don’t really know what to say to that?” Jun offered politely, “Well, at least with the R-fics, we don’t really remember. But um, we’re…glad?” and he looked at his band mates, who simultaneously nodded to keep him going. “Yeah, glad because we’re…actually still able to do a lot of…chapters together. Yeah, that would be the case.”
Various versions of “That’s right,” were heard, and heads bobbing up and down in unison. And there was an awkward pause.
“Er, right!” the Secretary managed. “So! Um…the next on the list would be…pairings with other actors and actresses,” she paused, scanning the next page on the clipboard. “I suppose it’s just fair to conclude that Matsumoto-san’s latest romance drama wasn’t really enough to help step up his Het fics with actresses…”
“…which is of course not T-san’s fault, is it?” Nino deftly managed to throw in, always a little more receptive when it comes to his ideal woman. And somehow, at the mere mention of Takeuchi Yuko, he was now propped up on the couch, cross-legged, and no one had noticed yet how the idol seemed to have cured his hip in an instant.
“Oh, no, of course not!” the Secretary exclaimed, “I’m only saying that Natsu no Koi wa Nijiiro ni Kagayaku simply couldn’t erase the fact that Matsumoto-san really looks incredibly compatible with Inoue Mao-san. And if he were to be paired with an older woman, the image of someone like Koyuki-san in Kimi wa Petto is much too compelling to let go of. Takeuchi-san’s character in NatsuNiji was…a little dampened by the fact that Kitamura-san already has a kid and-,”
“-in short, not R-fic-worthy?” Aiba finished for her. “Well, that’s too bad; I actually thought they could work as a new pair.”
“Not with Nino fanboying over her all the time, no,” Sho said logically. One glance over at Nino on the couch and he went, “Hey, wait a minute!”
There was a little scramble for spots on the couch, and Nino was dethroned on the cushions next to Ohno while Jun, Aiba and Sho each won a place. The Ohmiya SK duo thus proceeded with a little cuddling time, although any molestation on Nino’s part was not executed due to the fact that he was fresh from being molested by harem girls himself…and surprisingly desired a little break.
“Which leads us to the conclusion that the sure-fire way to encourage Het fics for Matsumoto-san without subjecting him to original characters that are most likely to be Mary Sue candidates is to have him work with Inoue-san again,” the Trainee concluded. “On another related note, I believe it’s easier for all of you to be in a Het fic if you’re paired up with actresses you’ve worked with before in real life, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, that’s like working on a drama…” Sho agreed, “I think it’s as comfortable as when we’re paired with one another, isn’t it?” he asked his band members, who seem to be of the same opinion.
“Any possibilities of a JunxMao collaboration in the near future?” the Secretary again turned to Jun, who could only shrug helplessly.
“Couldn’t they watch HanaDan all over again?” he half-suggested.
“Not everyone is as addicted as Becky, you know,” Aiba said aside to him. Both of them smothered a chuckle at the memory of the actress’ fan reactions for HanaDan.
“Speaking of Becky-san, she and Aiba-san still make a complimentary pair,” the Trainee added, and checking several other pages, “Then for Sakurai-san, we have Horikita Maki-san…eh, generally smut though…”
“…just smut?” Sho complained.
“…and also Fukada Kyoko-san, I almost forgot,” the Trainee went on, “And as for Ninomiya-san…”
“Ah, Yuriko-chan…” Ohno immediately produced.
“Yoshitaka Yuriko-san is quite a fan favourite, yes,” the Secretary said very fondly. “It’s not a surprising thing to see NinoxYuriko fics ranging from fluffy to smutty ever since GANTZ, so it’ll be a while before the hype dies down. Is it possible that you two are in a relationship?” she added hopefully.
“You know better than to ask, silly,” Nino answered, laughing at her question.
“Aha! Could it be that you’re a fan of Nino and Yuriko-chan?” Aiba asked the Secretary curiously.
She laughed, a little embarrassed. “You could say that, I suppose.”
“What about Riida then? Who’s he usually paired with?” Aiba asked the room in general.
Everyone, including Ohno himself, looked at one another…and shrugged.
“Well…,” Aiba said slowly, “you know you can always be in a love-triangle with me and Becky, Riida.”
Cue the cricket sound.
***
* [ Plot? What Plot?, though the lack of sexual scenes make it more Abstinence Porn than anything >.< ]
( Return to Part 2 | Continue to Part 4 )